When disasters occur (e.g., hurricane, earthquake, fire, bioterrorism, and like), emergency supplies (e.g., water, meal, medicine, generators, blankets, tarps, and like) need to be distributed to the population or victims within a short period of time, for example, within a few days. Distribution operation (e.g., supply chain and dispensing) in such emergency scenarios present a unique problem because the operation needs to cover a large number of people (e.g., millions of victims) in a short period of time (e.g., 48-72 hours), and disaster is a one-time event with no opportunity for re-planning the distribution operations.
Disastrous events bring undesirable conditions for supply chain operation. For instance, to prepare for the event of bioterrorism in which contagious disease such as anthrax, plague, small-pox, or tularemia can be spread to the general public, a plan for dispensing medical supplies such as vaccines and antibiotics to the public needs to be put in place. The mass prophylaxis would need to cover millions of people in large cities in a short amount of time. The health and lives of many people depend on the precision and effectiveness of the distribution and dispensing plan of medical supplies. No time is available to correct or adjust the plan once the emergency event occurs. Similarly, in the event of natural disasters such as hurricane, earthquake, tornado, flood, tsunami, or like, the needed supplies and resources (such as water, meal, ice and tarp) should be dispensed quickly, ideally within three days, to the affected area and population.
In a wide-spread smallpox attack, the vaccination of all potential contact should take place within four days of exposure, and, in the event of an anthrax outbreak, the distribution of antibiotics should take place within two days of the event. A plan of dispensing and vaccinating should consider various risk factors and uncertainties. In the event of hurricane damage, the victims in the affected area should be provided with water, ice, meal, tarp, cots, blankets and generators within three days to protect general health.
Distribution of emergency supplies involves a multi-echelon supply chain: from one or more vendors to one or more distribution centers (“DC”) to one or more staging areas and others and finally to one or more points of dispensing, also known as point of distribution (“POD”). The owners of the emergency supplies at different levels of the multi-echelon supply chain vary. For example, supplies may be owned by the federal government, local governments, private suppliers, or logistic providers at different supply chain levels. Distribution of emergency supplies also involves distribution/dispensing of supply to the victims at PODs.
Government agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”), state and local governments, vendors and 3PLs (3rd party logistics service provider) may have distribution plans. For example, when a hurricane occurs, a federal agency may ship medical and other emergency supplies to one or more of designated receiving, storing and staging (RSS) warehouses for each city or county in a predetermined number of hours. Then, it is the responsibility of each city or county that has a POD plan to transport the supplies to each POD and dispense them to the general public.
A tool that estimates the effectiveness of a distribution plan and/or how differently the plan would work in a variety of situations and scenarios would be desirable: for example, how fast the plan can reach disaster victims and cover the affected area, the adequate supply quantity to be distributed, the level of resources such as transportation equipment and machinery, loading/unloading facilities, dispensing personnel, etc., that is required. A simulation model would help offices and personnel involved in disaster management to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative dispensing plans and identifying opportunities for improvement. Currently, no known technology simultaneously simulates multi-echelon supply chain, progression of disease, and dynamics of victim at PODs, and interactions among them to analyze the effectiveness of distributing emergency supplies in the event of disaster.